


Layers on Layers (You must be Angels)

by A_Selkie_Abroad



Series: The Seer [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, America Being an Idiot (Hetalia), Brothers America & England (Hetalia), England and America are good friends though they still fight sometimes, England is secretly great with kids, Fluff, Gen, Human & Country Names Used (Hetalia), London, Mistaken Identity, Nations literally are the land, No Romance, Partial Identity Reveal, Pirate England (Hetalia), Platonic America/England (Hetalia), Seerverse Hetalia, Teasing, The Blitz, Time Skips, Two Shot, Uncle Alfred, VERY mistaken identity, What-If, a few headcannons, a kid can see nations, mistaken species even, time period set in the late 60s to 70s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:09:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23186800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Selkie_Abroad/pseuds/A_Selkie_Abroad
Summary: England meets a child that can see him for who he truely is. (Almost. He's not quite right, but close enough.)
Relationships: America & England (Hetalia)
Series: The Seer [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1742584
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	1. The Child that Sees

Nations are, in the end, not human.

  
  
When a human sees a Nation for the first time, their subconscious short-circuits a little as it tries to process what it’s seeing. Out of the corner of your eye, they seem fuzzy, and their traits seem to shift, merge, blend, like rainbow reflections on a soap bubble. The human brain bends itself over backwards to explain the anomaly - _it’s just a trick of the light_ , or _I haven’t gotten enough sleep_.

Children’s brains are more open, less set in their ways - they often do a double-take when first seeing a Nation, but then that little part of their brain kicks in and says _you’re imagining it_. 

Sometimes, there are humans born different. Their brain isn’t like the average person’s - this little block that makes humans explain away things that don’t make sense just... isn’t present. These children can see fae. These children can see _magic_.

These children can see Nations for what they _really_ are.

England remembers, years ago, meeting a child on the streets of London. The boy had looked like any other child his age, but this child…this child could _see_ him. He was only the third human England had ever met with this strange, anomalous ability.

It had been a rare sunny day in London. England was taking a leisurely stroll around the city, studying the buildings that had changed so much in the last few decades; when he had last seen them, they had been a brand new, built on the rubble of the Blitz.

( _England shuddered at the memory of alarms ringing out, bombs whistling through the air, explosions going off, and screaming, too much screaming-_ ) 

A child sat on the small deck in front of the building.

The child glanced up from his seat, his subconscious screaming inside of him that _something_ was askew, off, out of place.

And he saw the…man. Something wasn’t quite right with him, as if the world had cut out a person-shaped hole in the fabric of existence and patched it back up again with cloth slightly the wrong colour, hoping no one would notice.

A man. That’s what he looked like on the outside. Blond hair, green eyes, bushy eyebrows, eyes much ( _much)_ too old for his face. 

But layered on top- underneath? Inbetween? Was everything else. The entity flickered, his hair was red-short-blond-dull-curly-long-glossy, eyes blue-oval-bright-green-round-wise-hazel. His silhouette morphed, from short to tall, stocky to thin, and everything else in between. Faint shadows that could be glasses or earrings or hair clips phased in and out, playing across his face in a strange dance, like the shadow of tree’s leaves playing across the forest floor.

The child had walked up to Arthur and said, “Are you God?”, with that honest, inquisitive bluntness all children have at that age. 

Arthur froze. “W-what?” His accent was strange, the child noticed - A Londoner’s on the surface, but again with another layer just out of reach of most human’s awareness, a muddle of Somerset-Norfolk-Yorkshire-Kentish-Essex, and what sounded like ocean waves against stone and wood, rain pattering on roofs and green fields, church bells, barn owls hooting, low mumbling haze of chatter in a pub, and the rumbling of car engines. 

The child had frowned, confused. “You’re everyone, right? You’re everything here, in England. So you gotta be someone important. An Angel, then?”

England stuttered, still taken off guard. The child picked out more layers in his voice, a faint echo of sounds long-forgotten - the chuffing of a steam train’s engine, the rattling of looms in a factory, loud bangs of cannon shots and a metallic ringing chorus of steel-on-steel, the flapping of canvas sails in a too-strong wind, the faint rhythmic click-clacking of a telegraph. 

The child patted England’s sleeve reassuringly. His long coat smelled of gunpowder and tea leaves; it flashed blood red and gold in the sunlight.   
“It’s ok, Mr. Angel. I won’t tell anyone, promise.” The child smiled in that gleeful-conspiring way, happy to be included in secret only they and a select few knew.

And the child skipped off, back into the little worn-down building, leaving England quite mystified on the sidewalk.  
  


* * *

A few days later, England found his feet taking him to that street with the orphanage on it again. The child was there, this time with a myriad of other youths. 

The child glanced up - almost as if he knew Author was there - and grinned, abandoning his game of ball to run over.

“Mr. Angel! You came back!” The child whispered excitedly, tugging on the Nation’s sleeve, other hand flapping wildly. 

A posse of other children came over as well, to investigate this new person. “Jack, who’s this?” A blond called. 

The chi- _Jack_ grinned. “Oh, everyone, this is Mr.. uh…” He glanced back at Author, expression calling for assistance.

"Uh…E-Kirkland!” England supplied. The children pulled Arthur into their game of ball, and Arthur later found himself recounting a tale from his days as a pirate to a semi-circle of very curious children. His words were a brush, painting the image of high-stake fights, flashing metal and ocean waves directly onto the canvas of their minds.

England felt compelled to return next week.

And such as it is, the children of Berkley Orphanage had 'Storyteller Kirkland' come every Thursday to recount them a tale of times long past. Jack waited outside every Thursday afternoon, and greeted Author with an excited and whispered “Mr. Angel!”.

( _England never bothered to correct him._ )


	2. Uncle Alfred

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second half is here!

Arthur sighed as he noticed Alfred following him down the street.

“You aren’t subtle, you know.” He called out to the other personification, somewhat irritated but amused nonetheless.

Alfred huffed indignantly as he came around the corner to walk in step with the older Nation. “Dude, how did you know?”

England raised an eyebrow, a wry grin on his face. “You were humming the mission impossible theme.”

“...oh,” America visibly deflated, wrinkling his nose in annoyance. “You know, I really thought I had squashed that habit.”

"I cannot understand how in the world you manage to keep up with Russia in that silly race of yours when your spying skills are so abysmal," England chuckled in amusement, shaking his head. “So, is there any particular reason you are trying to follow me?”

America's personification rolled his eyes, ignoring the jab at his espionage abilities. “To see where you’ve been going, of course! You’ve been sneaking off every Thursday after the world meeting instead of coming drinking with me, Kiwi n’ Oz, and you think I wouldn’t want to know what you’ve been up to?”

Arthur laughed again, merriment sparkling in his eyes. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” They turned the corner onto the street England had been paying weekly visits to for the past few years. “It’s not exactly my usual style.”

Alfred opened his mouth to retort, but was interrupted by an eager tween flashing past him and tackling England. 

“Mr. Angel, Mr Angel, you’re back!” A brunette with startling blue eyes had his arms firmly latched around Arthur’s waist. Alfred raised a confused, yet curious brow.

Arthur grinned and ruffled the child’s unruly hair. “Yes, Jack, you’d think that after five years this wouldn’t be such a surprising event.”

Jack pulled back from England and tugged eagerly on the Nation’s sleeve. “Are you going to continue that story about those islands today-”

Jack trailed off as he spotted Alfred, who had turned to England in disbelief. “This is what you’ve been up to? Spinning yarns to orphan kids? I would have never guessed.” His voice was layered, just like Kirkland’s - a western drawl intermingled with valley girl and rocky mountain accents, the spitting and bubbling of food hitting hot oil, cracks of gunshots and fireworks, the creak of ancient redwoods stirring, a lone eagle’s cry melding in, creating a mosaic of sounds, a tapestry, rich and vibrant.

“You’re- You’re like Kirkland.” Jack breathed. “You’re an angel.”

Alfred choked. “ _What?!_ ” ( _The roaring cheer of a crowd, wind whistling across rolling plains, the babble and static of radio-_ )

England cleared his throat awkwardly. “Jack is one of those who can see our true nature. I forgot you’d never met one before, sorry.”

Jack frowned, staring at Alfred. “You’re not quite the same, though, are you? You sound different,” the boy darted over, grabbed his sleeve and sniffed Alfred’s suit vest, despite the Nation’s protests, “An’ you smell different too. Like apple pie, gunpowder, coffee and... metal..? I think, not tea n’ seasalt and rain, like Kirkland.”

England smothered a chuckle at America’s confused and shocked expression. 

“I dunno how to describe it...You’re like...the wind blowing through those rock-spire hoodoo maze things in the desert,” Jack nodded, happy with his summary. “Free n’ fierce and with no rules, like the cowboys from the wild west in the movers.”

“A-alright? Then? Okay? Sure, kid, that actually sounds pretty familiar…while also not making sense at all...” America mumbled. 

Jack grinned and tugged on Alfred’s sleeve again. “Come on, you have to come meet everyone! I bet your stories are just as good as Kirkland’s!” Jack started dragging the nation over to the orphanage.

‘ _Angels?_ ’ Alfred mouthed over Jack’s head to England, eyes wide in bewilderment.

Arthur shrugged, a grin on his face. ‘ _Not like we can tell him the truth_.’ He mouthed back.

And thus “Uncle Alfred” joined Arthur on his visits to the orphanage, although unlike England, he was unable to visit every week, much to the children’s disappointment.

(The children especially loved it when the two started talking about a 'Revolutionary war'. Although they did not understand most of the argument, seeing the two men devolve into petty insults was always entertaining. A certain 'frog' and 'my-twin-what's-his-face' were mentioned, and cursed, often.)

**Author's Note:**

> I've always enjoyed exploring what nations sounded/looked like - they aren't human, after all, they only wear a mask. What do they look like underneath? I'd love to hear some descriptions of other countries, and wether you agree/disagree with what I chose for England and America.
> 
> EDIT: Timeline issue fixed, fic now back to being historically accurate


End file.
